Caracterização do fenótipo gengival com análise por fotografia digital

: estudo de uma amostra populacional de Viseu

Abstract

Introduction: Establishing the diagnosis of a particular clinical situation in oral cavity must take into consideration many characteristics. Gingival phenotype is an important one. It is linked to all gingival morphogenic characteristics of each person, including soft tissue appearance, genetic characteristics and the way it looks after manipulation. Two gingival phenotypes should be taken in special consideration: one is thin and fragile associated with scalloped gingival margin and the other thicker related to a flat gingival margin. The aim of this research was to characterize the gingival phenotype of a patient’s sample of the Portuguese Catholic University Dental Clinicl by using digital photography. Materials and methods: In this study 294 patients were observed. 50 patients were selected according to inclusion criteria. Patients were submitted to clinical intraoral exams and photographic reports from anterior maxillae area. A periodontal probe was placed along the incisors crown in order to calibrate all images and execute measures using Adobe Photoshop CS 5.1. These variables were analyzed: crown width/ crown length ratio; papilla height; gingival width; gingival thickness; gingival angle and gingival asymmetry, comparing left and right sides of anterior maxillae area. Results: This sample has, majorly, thick phenotypes. An increasing tendency was found relating thin phenotype in women with long-narrow tooth form (50%) when compared to male patients also with long-narrow form (33%). Short-wide tooth form shown more tendency to be associated with thick phenotype, special in males (100%). A statistic relation between gender and gingival thickness was not proved (p>0,05), neither between shape and gingival thickness. However, this relation has statistical significance to gingival thickness and all analyzed variables (p<0,001) and also gender with papilla height (p=0,005), crown width/crown length (p=0,017) and gingival angle (p=0,041). A positive relation between GLA angle measure from both sides was also founded (correlation=0,675) and the same for LID values (correlation=0,384). The absolute asymmetry value was 2,8° showing different measures from each dental arch side. Conclusion: Within the limitations of this study it can be concluded that there is a strong association between gender and our variables: crown width/crown length ratio; papilla height; gingival angle. Related to gingival thickness there is a major prevalence of thick phenotypes in both genders but usually associated with males. It was also demonstrated that exists a correlation between gingival thickness and all studied variables. Besides that there was demonstrated an influence of tooth form in the gingival characteristics studied. It may be also concluded that asymmetry is present in this sample

Date of Award	Sept 2012
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	André Correia (Supervisor) & Tiago Marques (Co-Supervisor)